You can also use mkii as command line drawing tool: #> mtxrun texexec test.tex
\starttext \startTEXpage \resetMPdrawing \startMPdrawing picture pic[] ; numeric wid[], len[], pos[], n ; wid[0] := len[0] := pos[0] := n := 0 ; \stopMPdrawing \def\whatever#1% {\appendtoks#1\to\MPtoks \setbox\MPbox=\hbox{\bfd\the\MPtoks}% \startMPdrawing n := n + 1 ; len[n] := \the\wd\MPbox ; \stopMPdrawing \startMPdrawing[-] pic[n] := textext("\bfd\setstrut\strut#1") ; pic[n] := pic[n] shifted - llcorner pic[n] ; \stopMPdrawing} \handletokens MetaPost is Fun!\with\whatever \startMPdrawing pair len ; len := origin ; for i=1 upto n : draw pic[i] shifted len ; draw boundingbox pic[i] shifted len withpen pencircle scaled .25pt withcolor red ; len := len+(xpart lrcorner pic[i]-xpart llcorner pic[i],0) ; endfor ; \stopMPdrawing \MPdrawingdonetrue\getMPdrawing \stopTEXpage \stoptext -- luigi ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________